Paula Hawkins

“I know people like to read about serial killers and spies, but most of us will never encounter these things. Sadly, most of the threats we encounter are at home.”

“You can do fascinating things with the tricks memory can play and tell. People can come to believe things which didn't happen at all if they're told them enough times.”

“I adore Kate Atkinson, her literary as well as her crime output.”

“I want to drag knives over my skin, just so that I can feel something other than shame, but I'm not even brave enough to do that.”

“I'm not naturally an extrovert. I'm a writer - I sit in a room by myself making things up. That is where I'm happiest.”

“The journalism, I was a financial journalist - it's very good training as a writer. You have to write for deadlines; you have a certain economy of phrasing. As a training ground as a writer, it's fantastic. I also think it teaches you to be observant, to listen to people, and gives you an ear of dialogue from doing interviews.”

“To have my hopes raised and dashed again, it's like cold steel twisting in my gut.”

“So who do I want to be tomorrow?”

“I realized I do tragedy better than comedy.”

“I want to drag knives over my skin, just to feel something other than shame, but I'm not even brave enough for that”

“My idea of fun is to sit looking at a blank wall in a cottage, making up stories in utter silence. The thought of going back to work in an office is horrendous.”

“The sort of enjoyment that we all get from that voyeuristic impulse of looking into other people's house as we pass them, and the idea that there might be something sinister or strange going on in the houses we pass every day or in our neighborhood, is a very compelling idea.”

“When I wrote 'The Girl on the Train,' nobody knew who I was, and that's quite a comfortable position to be writing in.”

“I sit there on the floor with the picture in front of me and think about how things get broken all the time by accident, and how sometimes you just don't get round to getting them fixed.”

“I was commissioned to write some romantic fiction, and I really liked doing those, and they were very instructive in terms of building characters and plots. But it never felt right for me.”

“People think it's terribly sad to spend Christmas alone, but it's no sadder, really, than spending any other day alone, is it?”

“I am single and without children. I'm actually one of those people who's just never had a great desire to have kids.”

“We tell our stories differently, don't we, you and I?”

“'The Woman on the Train' just didn't sound as good. I'll take care next time not to have 'girl' in the title.”

“I wrote four novels under the name Amy Silver. The first one was commissioned, and I was given basically the whole plot and the characters. They told me what to do, and I went straight away and did it. After that, I continued, and I was coming up with more my own ideas, although they did steer me.”